Monday, 30 October 2017

Dubai: A 13-year-old girl with two sets of reproductive organs underwent “rarest of rare” surgeries at a Dubai hospital to separate her organs and relieve her of excruciating pain, doctors said on Sunday.

Medical investigations carried out on Mahra (name changed), the young UAE resident, an expatriate from Comoros Islands found that she had two uterus, two vaginas and two cervixes.

The patient has been discharged and recovered well.

Explaining the anomaly, Dr Rahman explained: “In a normal female, the uterus starts out as two small tubes, as you know a female is born with two set of ovaries. However, as the pregnancy progresses and the foetus develops, the tubes normally fuse to create one larger, hollow organ — the uterus. Sometimes, however, the tubes don’t fuse completely. Instead, each one develops into a separate structure. A double uterus may have one opening (cervix) into one vagina, or each uterine cavity may have a cervix. In this, case which is extremely rare, the patient had two vaginas, two cervixes and two uteruses.”

Sunday, 29 October 2017

The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MOHAP) has warned against hazards of using some facial skin care whitening creams without consulting a physician, particularly products marketed on social media. These could pose grave health risks and permanent damage to the skin, including facial bleaching and occurrence of dark spots.Dr Amin Hussain Al Amiri, assistant under-secretary of public health policy and licensing at MOHAP, said there is a growing demand among teenage girls to use skin whitening products which has led some social media influencers to promote creams that should be administered by medical prescription or in which chemicals should be used only after consulting specialists.

"These influencers present their personal experiences in videos they publish to their followers and encourage them to do the same," Dr Al Amiri explained, adding that such information dissemination could lead some manufacturing companies or local distributors to contract social influencers or 'fashionistas' to promote their products to increase sales.

Such actions have prompted the ministry, particularly the health empowerment and compliance department, to put into place a system of monitoring the content of these social media accounts and form a team to track some of the suspected accounts on social media, he explained.

Dr Al Amiri cited the video of a GCC lady who showcased her skin whitening experience after mixing three creams: the first one is Dermovate, a preparation that contains a cortisone derivative 'corticosteroid' used to treat symptoms such as skin inflammation, itching, which occur in some skin diseases such as psoriasis, some allergies and superficial dermatitis. These types of creams should be dispensed by a medical prescription and under the supervision of a specialist, he pointed out.

Monday, 23 October 2017

It has been over 20 years since the introduction of the Personal Computer (PC). Roughly five years after its invention in 1980, retail stores began to put the PC to use in their stores and head offices. Prior to this development small and mid-sized1 retailers2 mainly relied on either electronic cash registers that simply gave a sales total for the day or more sophisticated registers that provided sales by department reporting via a cash register tape at the end of the day. Far too expensive for small retailers, there were also the more sophisticated registers used by larger retailers that were connected to mini or main frame computers to track individual sales by product number.

With the growing popularity of the PC, programmers started to write Point of Sale, Financial and Inventory programs for smaller retailers. The first of these systems started appearing in 1983 but were very primitive and did not provide extensive integration or functionality. Over the past fifteen years systems have improved dramatically and have become almost as sophisticated as large store systems. Many of the programs now available were originally written in DOS but have been converted to the Windows operating system. There is not much functionality that large stores have that is also not available today to small-to-mid-sized stores.

This study was conducted in 1998 using a field research team that interviewed 580 Independent Retailers via phone calls that lasted on the average 30 minutes. These retailers were using integrated Point of Sale, merchandising (inventory control) and customer profiling software. They were probed for satisfaction with their systems as well as increases in sales and decreases in operating expenses. This study did rely on the opinion of the retailer and clearly has a margin of error based on the fact that sales increases (although documentable) could not be totally attributed to the deployment of technology. The study also found that the newer the system, the lower the sales increases attributed to the technology, and also a high correlation with low sales increases and dissatisfaction with the technology. And although the study is now almost 5 years old, the results would likely be even more impressive today as software has gained so much additional functionality over this time frame.The Effects Of POS Implementation And Retail Technology On Sales And Profitability

Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) plans to sell shares in its gas stations unit this year and list them on Abu Dhabi’s stock exchange, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.UAE's ADNOC said to plan IPO of fuel stations by end-2017

Goldman Sachs Group, Morgan Stanley and EFG-Hermes are helping to manage the sale, according to two people with knowledge, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Bank of America Corp, Citigroup, HSBC Holdings and First Abu Dhabi Bank were hired as underwriters, people familiar with the matter said in July. Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and EFG declined to comment.

ADNOC said in a statement that it’s considering selling shares in some of its services business, but it didn’t go into more detail. ADNOC Distribution may seek a value of as much as $14 billion, people familiar with the matter said in July. The company has started meeting with investors and analysts, one of the people said.

The energy company pumps most of the crude in the United Arab Emirates, which holds about 6 percent of global reserves. It said in July that it may sell minority stakes in some units and will seek more international partners to spur growth. While ADNOC has ventures to produce oil and natural gas with companies from countries including the US, China and Japan, it also may seek international expertise and funding for businesses such as energy trading and refining.

ADNOC Distribution has about 360 gas stations in the UAE, according to the company’s website, and owns the ADNOC Oasis chain of convenience stores. It also rents space to restaurants and coffee shops